Gardasil 9, the newest version of the HPV vaccine to be approved by the FDA, has the potential to prevent 90 percent of cases of cervical, vulvar, vaginal, and anal cancers, but only if the vaccine becomes more widely accepted.

A new study finds that cervical cancer rates and HPV vaccination rates tend to move up and down together, suggesting once again that if more young women get vaccinated there will be fewer cases of cervical cancer.

This week, scientists test a shot that could prevent HIV for up to three months at a time, President Obama’s budget calls for cutting abstinence-only-until-marriage funding, and many Americans apparently mix up their HPV and their HTML.

Though only half of teen girls have gotten one dose of the vaccine and fewer than a third have gotten the recommended three doses, new research has found that the proportion of teen girls infected with the strains of HPV that the vaccine addresses has dropped by 56 percent.

While we await the expected and demonstrated good news of few cervical and other cancer deaths among person immunized against HPV, a recent study from Denmark already shows us that vaccination can significantly reduce genital warts.

I want to open this STD Awareness Blog series with a STD complication success story: fighting cervical cancer. Because here’s the thing: cervical cancer is almost completely preventable. This means that, given consistent and correct care, you will likely never been one of those 4,000 women who die of this preventable and treatable disease.

This week: Too few young women get tested for Chlamydia, circumcised men have lower rates of prostate cancer, new guidelines recommend less frequent Pap tests, and young people in the South fare worse than their peers when it comes to sexual health.